The Magic Mountain (111 page)
“Stop!” Peeperkorn said, still looking away, but gesturing with the palm of his hand to restrain his visitor. “Isn’t it rather shabby of us to speak about her this way?”
“Surely not, Mynheer Peeperkorn. No, I think I can set your mind at ease there. We are speaking of human realities—and thus of matters ‘humane,’ in the sense of freedom and genius, if you will forgive me the somewhat stilted phraseology. But only recently I had occasion to make use of just such terms.”
“Fine, continue,” Peeperkorn commanded softly.
And Hans Castorp was speaking softly as well, and sitting on the edge of his chair next to the bed, hands between knees, bending forward toward the old monarch. “For she is a woman of genius,” he said. “And her husband beyond the Caucasus has . . . granted her freedom to make use of her genius, either because he is very stupid or very intelligent, I cannot say, not knowing the fellow. In any case, it was wise of him, for it is her illness that confers such freedom on her, it is the genius of illness that she serves. And so anyone who finds himself in the same situation would do well to follow her husband’s example and not complain, either about the past or the future.”
“And so you have no complaints?” Peeperkorn asked, turning his countenance to him now—it looked ashen in the twilight. The eyes gazed out pale and dull from under the idol-like tracery of the brow; the large, ragged lips hung half-open, like the mouth on the mask of tragedy.
“I did not intend,” Hans Castorp answered modestly, “to apply that to myself. My point was, rather, that
you
should not complain, Mynheer Peeperkorn, and so not withdraw your favor from me because of events that lie in the past. That is the essential issue for me here and now.”
“Yet all the same, I must have unwittingly inflicted great pain upon you.”
“If that is meant as a question,” Hans Castorp replied, “and if I were to respond to it in the affirmative, that should in no way imply that I do not know how to value the enormous privilege of your acquaintance, for that privilege is inseparably bound up with the disappointment of which you speak.”
“I thank you, young man, I thank you. I value the courtesy of your modest phrases. But setting our acquaintance aside—”
“It is difficult to set it aside,” Hans Castorp said, “and indeed it would hardly be advisable for me to do so if I am to answer your question in the affirmative with no pretense. For the fact that Clavdia returned in the company of a personality of your stature could, of course, only increase and complicate the discomfort I would have felt in seeing her return in the company of any man. It certainly was hard for me to deal with, and still is, I cannot deny it. But I have intentionally held to the positives of the matter as best I could, that is, to my sincere feelings of respect for you, Mynheer Peeperkorn—which, by the by, also permitted me to needle your traveling companion just a little, since women do not particularly enjoy seeing their lovers getting along.”
“Indeed—” Peeperkorn said, hiding a smile by brushing his cupped hand over mouth and chin, as if afraid Frau Chauchat might see him smiling. Even Hans Castorp smiled discreetly, and then they both nodded awhile in agreement.
“One should not begrudge me my little bit of revenge,” Hans Castorp went on. “For if I matter here at all, I truly have some reason to complain—not about Clavdia and not about you, Mynheer Peeperkorn, but to complain in general, about my life and fate. And since I enjoy the honor of your confidence and this has turned out to be such a thoroughly exceptional twilight hour, I would like at least to attempt to indicate what I mean.”
“Please do,” Peeperkorn said politely.
And with that, Hans Castorp went on: “I have been up here for a long time, Mynheer Peeperkorn, for years and years—I don’t precisely know how long now, but they are years of my life, which was why I spoke just now of ‘life’—and I shall return to the matter of ‘fate’ at the appropriate moment. My cousin, whom I came here to visit, was a military man, an honest and good fellow, but that did not help him—he died here, leaving me behind, and here I am still. I was not a military man myself, I had chosen a civilian profession, as you have perhaps heard, a sturdy, reasonable profession, of which it is even said that it may bring nations closer together, but of which I was never particularly fond, I must admit. As to the reasons, I can only say that they lie in darkness, lie there together with the origins of my sentiments toward your traveling companion—and I expressly call her that to make clear that it would never occur to me to try to alter a legitimate state of affairs—with the origins of my sentiments toward Clavdia Chauchat and of my addressing her with only informal pronouns, a relationship that I never denied from the moment her eyes first met mine and fascinated me—fascinated me in the most irrational sense of the word, you understand. For the sake of her love and in spite of Herr Settembrini, I subordinated myself to the principle of irrationality, to the principle behind the genius of illness, to which, admittedly, I had long since, perhaps from the very start, submitted myself and to which I have remained true up here—for how long now, I no longer know, I have forgotten everything, broken off with everything, with my relatives and my profession in the flatlands, with all my prospects. And when Clavdia departed, I waited for her, just went on waiting up here, so that the flatlands is entirely lost to me now, and in its eyes I am as good as dead. That is what I meant when I spoke of ‘fate,’ and went so far as to suggest that I might possibly have cause to complain about my present situation. I once read a story—no, I saw it in the theater—about how a good-hearted young fellow, a military man like my cousin, by the way, gets involved with an enchanting Gypsy—and she was enchanting, with a flower behind her ear, a savage, mischievous creature, and he was so fascinated with her that he got completely off-track, sacrificed everything for her, deserted the colors, ran off with her to join a band of smugglers and disgraced himself in every way. And after he had done all that, she had enough of him, and came along with a matador, a compelling personality with a splendid baritone. It ended outside the bullring, with the little soldier, his face chalky white, his shirt unbuttoned, stabbing her with a knife, though you might say she as good as planned the whole thing herself. A rather pointless story, really, now that I think of it. But then, why did it occur to me?”
At the mention of the word “knife,” Mynheer Peeperkorn had changed his sitting position in bed somewhat, suddenly edging away and turning his face to search his guest’s eyes. Now he sat up more comfortably, propping himself on his elbows, and said, “Young man, I have heard, and I have the picture. And on the basis of what you have just said, permit me to make an honorable declaration of my own. Were my hair not white and were I not so debilitated by this malign fever, you would see me prepared to give you satisfaction, man to man, weapon in hand, for the injury I have unwittingly inflicted upon you, and for the additional injury caused by my traveling companion, for which I likewise must take responsibility. Agreed, my good sir. You would see me prepared. But as things stand, you will permit me to make another suggestion in lieu of that. It is as follows: I recall a sublime moment, at the very beginning of our acquaintance—I recall it, though I had copiously partaken of wine—a moment when, touched by your pleasant temperament, I was about to offer you the brotherhood of informal pronouns, but could not avoid the realization that such a step would have been overhasty. Fine, I refer today to that moment, I return to it now, I declare the postponement we agreed upon then to be at an end. Young man, we are brothers, I declare us to be such. You spoke of the use of informal pronouns in their full meaning—and our use of them shall also be in the full meaning of a brotherhood of feeling. The satisfaction that old age and infirmity prevent me from offering you by means of weapons, I now offer you in this form; I offer it in the form of a bond of brotherhood, of the sort that is usually established against a third party, against the world, against someone else, but which we shall establish in our feelings for someone. Take up your wineglass, young man, while I reach yet again for my water tumbler—it will do this modest vintage no further harm—”
His captain’s hand trembling slightly, he filled the glasses, with the assistance, offered in respectful bewilderment, of Hans Castorp.
“Take it,” Peeperkorn repeated. “Link arms with me! And drink now thus. Drink it down!—Agreed, young man. Settled. Here, my hand on it. Are you satisfied, Hans Castorp?”
“That is, of course, no word for it, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” said Hans Castorp, who had some difficulty downing the whole glass in one draft, and now took out his handkerchief to wipe the wine he had spilled on his knee. “What I mean is, I am terribly happy and still cannot grasp how this has so suddenly been bestowed on me—it is, I must admit, like a dream. It is an overwhelming honor for me—I don’t know how I have earned it, at best in some passive way, certainly not in any other. And one should not be surprised if at first I shall find it rather daring to utter this new form of address and stumble in the attempt—particularly in the presence of Clavdia, who, being but a woman, may not be quite so pleased with this new arrangement.”
“Leave that to me,” Peeperkorn replied, “and the rest is merely a matter of practice and habit. And now go, young man. Leave me, my son. It is dark, night has fallen. Our beloved may return at any moment, and a meeting of us three would perhaps not be that convenient just now.”
“Fare thee well, Pieter Peeperkorn,” Hans Castorp said and stood up. “You see, I am overcoming my legitimate reserve and am already practicing this rash form of address. True, it has grown quite dark. I could easily imagine Herr Settembrini suddenly bursting in and turning on the light, so that reason and social order might hold sway—it’s one of his weaknesses. Till tomorrow, then. I leave so pleased and proud, beyond my wildest dreams. Do get well. You’ll have at least three days without fever now, and will be able to meet each day’s demands. That delights me as much as if I were you. Good night.”
A waterfall is always an inviting goal for an excursion, and we hardly know how to justify Hans Castorp’s never having visited the picturesque cascade in the forests of the Flüela Valley, particularly since he had a special fondness for falling water. He may be excused for not having done so during the period he lived with Joachim, since his cousin had not been here for pleasure and as a man with a strict sense of duty had limited his field of vision to purposeful business in the immediate vicinity of the Berghof. And after his demise—well, even after that, Hans Castorp’s relationship to the local landscape, if one ignores his ski outings, had maintained its conservative, monotone character, a trait that had held a certain special charm for the young man when he contrasted it with the range of his inner experiences and the duties involved in “playing king.” All the same, he had eagerly seconded the plan for a pilgrimage to this highly recommended site when it was suggested within his little circle of seven friends (counting himself).
May had arrived—the merry month, if one believes the simple little ditties of the flatlands—but still quite fresh and with air somewhat less endearing up here, although the period of thaw could now be considered over. Snow had fallen in huge flakes several times over the last few days, but had not stuck and merely left the ground wet; the drifts of winter had melted, evaporated, and vanished, except for a few scattered remnants. The world’s green accessibility seemed an invitation to the very spirit of enterprise.
As it was, for the last several weeks the group’s social activities had been restricted by the poor health of their chief, the great Pieter Peeperkorn, whose malign memento of the tropics refused to respond to either the exceptional climate or the antidotes prescribed by as excellent a physician as Director Behrens. He was frequently confined to his bed, and not just on the days when his quartan fever went about its foul work. His spleen and liver were giving him trouble, too, or so the director indicated whenever he pulled aside those closest to the patient; nor was his stomach in classic condition. And Behrens did not neglect to note that, under such circumstances, one could not entirely dismiss the risk of chronic debilitation in even the most robust constitution.
Mynheer had presided over only one evening of eating and drinking in the previous week, and their walks together had likewise been limited to one abridged stroll. Just between us, by the way, Hans Castorp was relieved, in one regard at least, to see the bonds of the clique loosened somewhat, for he was having difficulty with the toast of brotherhood he had drunk with Frau Chauchat’s traveling companion. In his public conversations with Peeperkorn, he displayed the same “stiffness,” the same “dodging,” the same “avoidance” evident in his dealings with Clavdia and based on a philopena, so to speak. When it came to the forms of address, he would substitute the oddest circumlocutions—that is, if he could not slur over them entirely. He was caught in the same dilemma—or better, its opposite—that governed his conversations with Clavdia when held in the presence of others, even if only before her lord and master; indeed, thanks to the satisfaction he had received from the latter, his dilemma had culminated in a formal double bind.
But the plan for an excursion to the waterfall was now on the agenda—Peeperkorn himself had selected the goal, and he felt up to the effort. It was the third day after a quartan attack; Mynheer let it be known he wished to take advantage of the fact. He had not appeared in the dining hall for the first meals of the day, but had taken them, as he often did of late, with Madame Chauchat in his parlor. Nevertheless, as Hans Castorp made his way to first breakfast, he was greeted by the limping concierge and told to be ready for a drive one hour after dinner; he was also to pass the order on to Herr Ferge and Herr Wehsal, likewise to notify Settembrini and Naphta that they would be picked up, and, finally, was given the task of ordering two landaus for three o’clock that afternoon.